Chandra Turns 10

"We
and the cosmos are one. The cosmos is a vast body, of which
we are still parts. …It is a vital power rippling exquisitely
through us all the time." D.H. Lawrence*

August
19, 2009: About ten years ago Space Shuttle Columbia
launched hauling 55,000 pounds worth of astronomers' dreams
-- the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. This was the heaviest payload
a space shuttle ever lifted – and one of the best day's labor
the work-horse space shuttle ever put in.

August
19, 2009, marks Chandra's 10 year "first light"
anniversary.** Last week some Chandra team members celebrated
the observatory's past decade of dramatic discoveries. Project
scientist Martin Weisskopf has devoted over 30 years of his
life to the observatory. Addressing an audience of current
and original project leaders, researchers, and others, he
described the scene on Earth during Chandra's first weeks
in orbit.

"After
the launch, we waited for good things to happen," he
began. From
the back of the room at the National Space Science and Technology
Center in Huntsville, Alabama, came this interruption: "We're
getting old, Martin! Speak up!" Without
missing a beat Weisskopf answered "I've got my
hearing aid in," evoking a hearty laugh from the audience.

He
and some of the other master telescope builders in that audience
may be nearing retirement, but they're still vigorously pursuing
new science with their equally robust observatory.

Weisskopf
continued describing the suspense they felt ten years ago:
"First we waited for Chandra's internal propulsion system
to position the instrument in proper orbit. Then we waited
for instrument checkout. Then we waited for a series of doors
to open. Finally, we saw the first image and emitted a collective
'ahhhh.' Our telescope worked!"

Not
only did it work, it triumphed. And it's still going. The
observatory is ready to take its second generation of explorers
on a wild ride through the cosmos.

To
the naked eye, and even to some types of telescopes, the night
sky looks serene. But the universe is really a place of sudden
and chaotic violence, teeming with supernova explosions, million-degree
clouds of intergalactic gas, and seething disks of torn-up
matter swirling around black holes. Chandra is unique in its
ability to see this crucial hot world that holds the key to
so many scientific mysteries.

And
it all started when the "Cas A" supernova remnant
posed for Chandra's official first light image. Scientists
deduced that material blasted into space from the explosion
crashed into surrounding material at 10 million miles per
hour. The collision caused violent shock waves, like massive
sonic booms, spawning an enormous 50-million degree bubble
of X-ray emitting gas.

Heavy
elements in the hot gas produce X-rays of specific energies.
Chandra can precisely measure these X-rays and reveal how
much of each element is present. With this information, astronomers
can probe how the elements necessary for life are created
and spread throughout the galaxy by exploding stars.

In
short, Chandra has helped confirm that we are star stuff.

"The
iron in our blood came from some star that exploded perhaps
billions of years ago," says Weisskopf.

After
just two months in space, Chandra took a stunning image of
another supernova explosion, the Crab Nebula, and showed for
the first time the luminous rings of high-energy particles
surrounding its core:

Combined
with observations from the Hubble Space Telescope, Chandra
data yielded clues about how rotation of the pulsing neutron
star at the center of the Crab Nebula powers the nebula, which
still glows brightly 1,000 years after the explosion.

Chandra
has also been schooling astronomers about quasars, binary
stars, matter-eating black holes – the list gets "curiouser
and curiouser." This Chandra image shows the central
portion of our own Milky Way galaxy. The bright white patch
near the center of the image harbors a supermassive black
hole:

Above:
A Chandra X-ray Observatory image of the central
region of our Milky Way galaxy. [more]

Chandra
has found black holes all across the universe, and some of
the telescope's most fascinating finds have been made in their
vicinity. For instance, Chandra has given scientists new information
about the X-ray jets blasting from black holes: image.
Chandra
also found proof for the first time of two supermassive black
holes in the same galaxy: image.
In this case, two's a crowd!

And
there's more. Chandra has helped flush dark matter out of
hiding, advanced the study of dark energy, given us clues
about how the universe has evolved over time, and even taught
us something about the planets in our own neighborhood. The
telescope has shown planets to be surprisingly interesting
X-ray sources. For instance, Mars and Venus sparkle like LITE-BRITEs®.***

"X-rays
and particles from the sun are crashing into the Martian atmosphere.
We can learn some things about that atmosphere by looking
at its constituents as imaged by Chandra," explains Weisskopf.

Right:
This Chandra image gave scientists their first look
at X-rays from Mars. Credit: NASA and Chandra Science Center

X-ray
astronomy was born in the 1960s, and Chandra is swiftly sweeping
the science along. Uhuru, the first satellite devoted to X-ray
astronomy, was launched in 1970 and mapped a few hundred bright
sources. Chandra has a hundred thousand times the sensitivity
of Uhuru and to date has made over 9500 observations.

According
to Program Manager Keith Hefner, "Our confidence in the
observatory's performance and in its future remains very strong.
With recent extensions, Chandra could operate to 2019 and
beyond."

They
haven't run out of things to look at?

"The
answer is a resounding 'No!'" says Weisskopf. "We're
not nearly done. And we've got young, eager scientists helping
us on this team who were barely even born when we first conceived
of Chandra. They have some great ideas--and they don't even
wear hearing aids!"

*
From Apocalypse and the writings on Revelation, By David
Herbert Lawrence, p. 77 Edition: 3 – 1995.

**
Although the official first light was on August 19,
1999, the first photons (the real first light) was observed
on August 12.

***LITE-BRITE®
is a registered trademark of Hasbro, Inc.

The
Chandra X-ray Observatory was named in honor of the
late Nobel laureate Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar. NASA's
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala., manages
the Chandra program for the Science Mission Directorate,
NASA Headquarters, Washington. Northrop Grumman of Redondo
Beach, Calif., formerly TRW, Inc., was the prime development
contractor for the observatory. The Smithsonian Astrophysical
Observatory controls science and flight operations from
the Chandra X-ray Center in Cambridge, Mass.